Death of a Pilgrim
by Weird Lounge
Summary: A self-contained story involving the thief Greirat from the Undead Settlement, Death of a Pilgrim follows an unnamed narrator, also a hollowed servant like Greirat, as they venture outside their Settlement in search for a purpose of being within the cursed kingdom of Lothric.
1. Chapter 1

I

I no longer remember the first time I took the life of an unsuspecting traveler. Perhaps it was with a crooked axe, the ragged handle wavering unsteadily as the stone blade collapsed their ashen throat, drenching our morbid ballet in a cloud of dark blood. Or perhaps it was more happenstance, a lucky dart blown from a distance, connecting with one of the many vulnerable pockets of taut skin, a warrior's final pleas for mercy drowned out by the haughty jeers of his assailants. It's a memory that wasn't so much forgotten as it was replaced, my mind filled with the images and scars of countless skirmishes since that first, each marked by the worst inside someone bubbling forth, a primal and violent fury—all while the insides of another spilled out, decorating our village with the musk of death and decay.

But travelers aren't the only ones whose corpses nurture the soil here in the Settlement. Hollows and hounds are felled like clockwork, routinely butchered by those too powerful for us to overcome. After all, in a past life, in a distant land, in a dream somewhere long forgotten—what were we but mere peasants, a throwaway gang of miserable sinners and wretches now cursed to fall at the blades of foreigners? Some of those among us try to tell me otherwise, spinning their yarns in a guttural and twisted tongue, but the bile salivating from their purple lips betrays the stories of their supposed former braveries. How do they expect any of us to believe that a knight or mage would ever be reborn as a lowly thrall? Regardless, stories are just stories, and words can't help them escape death. And so they die.

I've joined them more times than I can count.

I don't remember my first death, or the first hundred following it. But the curse of Lothric remains—no matter how viciously we fight, no matter how agonizing our own suffering, we never stay down. Never was there more apt a name than the Undead Settlement. No one can truly explain it, though some claim to have seen a swirling gold haze, like swaying serpentine tendrils of a cloud pulled from some distant heavens, circling mysterious bonfires. It is to these fires we attribute our cyclical agonies, time itself becoming an illusion as we are birthed and rebirthed emad infinitum. /emBefore anything can ever be done, before any investigation can occur—not that any of the other dung-headed lowlifes care for much more beyond the next notch in their knife—we're pulled back, the cursed hands of time weaving a new thread into their fabric, tearing out the stitches of the past—whether it be a past where we've slain or been slain—and building a new pattern, a new timeline for us all to follow. We dimly retain some memories, hazy as they may be, and some of the scars remain, fading as additional threads are torn and rewoven, fingers of misery tracing the outlines of bruises on our flesh as new shades bloom.

A brave few have ventured past the fire, in search for peace or answers or some other mysterious and unobtainable Truth, but none ever return. Their absence is temporarily noted in the village, typically marked by the growls of discontent from the hollows we serve, angry that their servant has abandoned their post. Yet without exception, upon the return of that golden haze, that foreign luminescent glow, a new thrall will appear in the village to take the place of the one that left. Perhaps they're one and the same, but they never understand our questions and are unresponsive to any former names. The thralls that leave return in body only; the spirit and soul are lost somewhere in the unknown.

So it continues, from familiar faces and new, from blades and burns to pestilence and witchcraft unknown—we kill, we die, we retread the same paths we always have; the hunger within ebbs and undulates, growing voraciously as whatever semblance of reason within us becomes violently dissolute. Not much changes within the Settlement.

At least, that was true until Greirat. A lowly thrall, hollowed and subservient like the rest of us, though what he lacked in brute strength he compensated for with his cunning. As with the others, there's no way for any of us to either confirm or disprove his tales, but rumors abounded that it was Greirat who first started climbing and hiding in the musty rafters of buildings, that it was Greirat who showed us—the weak, disillusioned, and hopeless—that we, too, could satiate that suppressed bloodlust, long unquenched, dormant yet brooding within each of us. It wasn't long before Greirat became a symbolic figure in the Settlement, though what that symbol meant varied based on whom you asked. To some, he was the guiding force they had long sought, instilling in them a self-dependent efficiency, a catalyst to further hone their murderous craft. To others, he represented a faint beacon of hope, the manifestation of the idea that it was possible to do things differently, that our positions within this cycle of death could change, if only slightly.

One day, Greirat was gone. There was no new hollow stumbling in his place, dim and unaware, and no corpse signifying his passing. Murmurs of how he slipped outside the Settlement surprised no one—he was always one wont for adventure, often filling my ears with a prophetic, if not misplaced, vision of a distant land of wealth and revelry. In his absence, we endured the lashes and abuse from the hollows he served, an angry retribution for a slave's disappearance, pools of dark blood gathering and messily lapping into one another. But the rage subsided and eventually the gold mist returned, as it always does, and we were all pulled back into place, everything broken now fixed. But still there was no sign of Greirat or a replacement.

Countless cycles passed. It was a trying time for the Settlement; it seemed each stray traveling wanderer we vanquished was replaced by a dozen more that were even stronger, laying waste to our hollows and homes, leaving behind them a wake of agony and loss. Soon, Greirat's departure ceased to be a topic of discussion or concern, the void left in his former position replaced by a renewed caustic intensity in the others, each of their movements filled with malevolent purpose. Though the others held no quandary with continuing in their slaughters uninhibited, I felt a profound sense of lacking unlike anything I had ever experienced. It was an emptiness within me that sharply contrasted with the empty feeling of having one's entrails escape them; it was a longing that far exceeded the one I once harbored exclusively for bloodshed. Even as I felt myself torn apart by gnats and horned insects, the victim of a dark spell, minuscule assailants flooding my pores, puncturing my flesh and organs, feasting on my living body—I felt the wonder within me take shape, forming an imaginative iron shell that withstood death, a promise of a future that I could endure.

Then Greirat returned—and he wasn't alone.

/

 _Published weekly with original illustrations on .com_


	2. Chapter 2

II

Nothing warned of his return.

In a way, that was entirely characteristic of Greirat; whereas other travelers—whether malevolent vagrants, weary missionaries, or any number of variations between—had a tendency to give some sort of inadvertent sign, usually auditory, such as the rhythmic crunch of decaying foliage or the swelling, screeched battle cries looming forth from distant skirmishes, Greirat returned as deftly and silently as he first left. Some arrivals are like great boulders, shattering the illusory and peaceful veil of a pond, cathartic waves erupting on all sides, swimmers torn through riptides amidst the debris of scuttled boats. Others are mere pebbles, dropped with a delicate aplomb, slowly sinking in silence. But even the smallest pebble sends ripples, and for a place as isolated as the Settlement, there were no secrets.

Thus we met Loretta, clinging like moss to a stone, following the steadfast lead of our former brother-in-arms just as we once had. Greirat, our lost guide, the one who reinvigorated our bloodlust only to embark on a pilgrimage for something greater, something that only he understood. I yearned for a semblance of the knowledge or reasoning behind his abandonment, though not nearly as I felt an inexplicable desire to experience it on my own. Perhaps all I had been waiting for was proof that it was possible, that a mere thrall could not only leave, straying from the perennial bonfire that gave them their rebirth, but could also return, safely and with faculties intact. Regardless, it was then, just a few short moments after Greirat's return, I realized I was already fostering burgeoning hopes that he would leave again. Only this time, I knew I would travel alongside him.

When they first arrived, Greirat's guest was nearly mistaken for a stray traveler. But we knew this could not be—not only did her form and mannerisms betray her as being another thrall, shambling and hollowed, it was further understood that even were she not, Greirat most certainly was. And a thrall, especially one as weak in stature as he, never took a prisoner of their own. Encounters were known to end with the death of one or both of the parties involved.

Yet here she was, a stranger to our Settlement, greeted by the animalistic howls and jeers of a few raucous hollows but largely embraced with stoicism and measured observations. Her appearance was a new occurrence for the Settlement and as such, terrified us greatly. This was a world where such twisted sorceries exist that those with charred hearts can erupt pillars of flame from the soil beneath your feet, instantaneously boiling blood and searing flesh, cooking you as you continue to writhe and contort, limbs flailing in desperate attempts to strike, knowing full well that your life is now forfeit but still praying to at least collapse one of the bastard's limbs, tortured by the throbbing final pulsations of your brain as the last thoughts to spill from your mind's gutters are that of an inevitable rebirth and the curiosity of how you will die the next time. Looking at the others in the Settlement, it was memories of deaths such as these that haunted each of us—and Loretta's arrival brought them all to the forefront. For there was no way any of us could know or possibly understand what was special about her, what warranted Greirat bringing her to our home, or most importantly, how she may end up betraying and destroying all of us.

Even the silent among us grew anxious. Aside from a few hushed introductions, Greirat and Loretta gave no explanations, offered no solaces; rather, the pair continued through the Settlement in a shuffling procession, murmuring offhandedly to one another. A few of the more abrasive hollows grit the few teeth they had remaining, tightening their grips on their respective weapons, a gesture that was subtly returned by Greirat. He hadn't lost his edge. As he confidently yet cautiously passed by and proceeded deeper into the heart of our Settlement, I thought back to the countless times I had witness his vicious fervor. There were times where Greirat's mastery of the flamberge, the powerful yet unwieldy blade, exceeded that of many of the warriors that reveled in combat. Even though he later strayed towards more simple weaponry, for which his aptitude was just as deadly, there were still vibrant images of his rapid and unwavering attacks, an onslaught I had witnessed enough times to permanently paint the scenes onto the cavernous walls inside my skull.

But it wasn't the weapons that concerned me, nor was it the tightened tension, the animosity painted so thickly into the smog around us I felt I could choke on it. What truly worried me were the satchels on their backs. Both Greirat and Loretta possessed bulging travel packs, not unlike those we were accustomed to pilfering from careless merchants, made from cheap twine and patches of rotting fabric, torn and rewoven more times than the sun has risen. Just as I was imagining the horrific and diabolical mysteries that hid behind a few thin layers of frayed thread, contemplating what unknown sorceries careened loosely through the thoughts of my former mentor, a thrall surely twisted by the enticing lure of that harpy Loretta's siren song, the walls came crashing down around me. Greirat, nearly at his former hut, turned back to face the rows of villagers, countless hounds snarling as foam pooling at their bloodied paws, their memories of the man long since forgotten. Without a sound, he slowly turned his head, a determined yet cautious motion.

Our eyes met and we nodded to one another.

In a world where death was all we knew, Greirat proffered the chance to experience something unknown. To this day, I'm still unsure whether I should curse the bastard or praise him.

I just hope he taught me enough that I survive.


End file.
